Diary of an Arcade Employee

This Feminist Icon Wants You To Eat This Butter-Like Stuff

In what would have to be the first instance of a former First Lady taking to the airwaves to endorse fake butter, here’s a commercial from 1959 in which Eleanor Roosevelt praises (for money) Good Luck margarine.

From the middle of nowhere in the Pacific Northwest, I contribute to the Retroist, write for trivia publications, and blog about music in a humorous fashion. I feel about "Back to the Future" the way you feel about "Star Wars." Also, I'm married and have a child (sorry ladies, orphans).

Subscribe to the Retroist Newsletter

Post navigation

One thought on “This Feminist Icon Wants You To Eat This Butter-Like Stuff”

Margerine has an interesting history. It’s sold in the flat boxes because the dairy farmers managed to get laws passed to make it illegal to seel margerine in the square boxes butter was sold in. Similarly, they managed to get laws passed back around WWII which made it illegal to sell pre-dyed margerine in some areas (margerine is naturally whitish in color, like crsico). To get around this, margerine producers would sell undyed product along with yellow dye in a single package, and the housewife would mix the dye in once she got home. You can sometimes hear references to this if you listen to old radio shows which still have commercials intact.
Apparently, back in the 30s~40s, the dairy industry had as much pull as the tobacco & firearms ones do today.